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Marketers Boosting Automated Campaigns in 2012

Marketing automation is on the rise: 59% of senior marketers say they expect the number of automated campaigns to increase over the next 12 months, and 83% expect the use of marketing automation to improve the efficiency of their marketing processes, according to a report by Forrester Research and Silverpop.

Some 39% of senior marketers surveyed expect the number of automated campaigns to stay the same, and only 2% expect levels to decline.

There are skeptics, however: 14% of senior marketers say marketing automation will likely have no impact on process efficiency in 2012.

More than one in three senior marketers use automated marketing for lead generation (38%) and cultivating cross-sell or up-sell opportunities (37%).

However, marketers newer to automation (using automation for four years or less) say they use the tool for customer activation and data gathering. By contrast, mature users (5+ years) focus on lead nurturing, cultivating cross-sell and up-sell opportunities, and conversion completion, according to the study.

Campaign Types

Among senior marketers, campaigns that reoccur, as well as those triggered by certain behaviors, are among the most popular:

65% now use reoccurring campaigns, and 67% expect to do so in the next 12 months.

53% now use behavioral data to trigger automated messages, and 66% expect to do so in the next 12 months. That's up roughly 13% over the 12-month period.

Measurement Strategies

Though marketers need to show that technology investments deliver business impact, most focus primarily on basic response metrics (80%), such as email opens and clicks, whereas roughly half that proportion focus on incremental improvements to lead generation (41%) and revenue (40%).

Some 19% of senior marketers track social media activity; even fewer track page category (11%) and site path (11%) information.

Pragmatic Approaches to Triggers

Regarding marketing triggers, most senior marketers focus on transaction history (55%) and promotion response history (51%), while nearly one-half have added behavioral (48%) and demographic (48%) data to the mix.

More than one in three (38%) senior marketers tap survey data, but far fewer use information regarding preferences (20%), propensity scores (9%) and influence scores (8%).

About the data: Findings are from a survey of 155 US-based senior marketing professionals conducted by Forrester Research, for Silverpop, In January 2012.

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How are they defining automated campaigns? At first glance, I think about email marketing, but I realize this article and study apply to more than that. It would be helpful to know so we can put the stats into context, and decide where to focus our energy based on the survey results when looking at developing our own automated campaigns. Thanks!!

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